Due to the complexity of current test programs, flowcharts are a necessity in supporting these programs. Each flowchart allows users of the respective test program to understand what a particular test program is doing at a given test during execution by, for example, showing a sequence of logical operations. By viewing the sequence, the user can understand what test instrumentation is being used, parameters of the test instrumentation being programmed and/or the values of the parameters.
Manual creation of a flowchart, especially for a lengthy test program, can be a time consuming process taking up valuable engineering assets. The flowcharting process does not end there because throughout the development life cycle of the test program, the test program will change and new flowchart documentation will have to be created, once again taking up valuable time and assets.
A development team of an organization utilizing test programs typically consists of numerous engineers writing test programs for similar and/or different systems. Each of these systems may or may not use the same programming language and API calls. The keywords and constructs in these languages and API calls for controlling the instrumentation are analogous from programming language to programming language and test station to test station, but each engineer may describe these same constructs and API differently in their flowchart, thereby creating confusion and discontinuity.
With a view toward avoiding potential confusion and discontinuity, the present invention provides a specific method to correct this problem by defining a set of flowcharting rules for each analogous keyword, construct and API call.